


Half-Winged

by FeabhraBlth



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020), Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Captivity, Dark, Historical References, M/M, Obsessive Behavior, Possessive Sephiroth (Compilation of FFVII)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 17:48:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29388678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeabhraBlth/pseuds/FeabhraBlth
Summary: Everything changes for Zack Fair one night as he is drawn into the story of Cloud – a beautiful stranger who lost all he ever cherished at the hands of his maker. Slash, M/M, type of vampirism, dark, angst, romance.
Relationships: Sephiroth/Cloud Strife, Zack Fair/Cloud Strife
Comments: 10
Kudos: 62





	1. A Prelude With a Meeting

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own FFVII or any of its characters, they belong to the amazing people at Square Enix.

The Gashtrike was a vicious, slimy thing. Stretching over ten foot high into the air, each of its attacks were powerful and aimed to inflict as much wide-ranged damage as possible.

Zack skidded backwards several feet on the loose gravel but managed to maintain his footing while his comrades fell back around him. He gritted his teeth and crouched low, watching as the ugly creature, finished its attack, reared back with an angry and disturbingly feminine wail. As it did it exposed a good portion of the soft skin under its neck.

He knew that was his chance. He gripped the handle of his Shinra-issued sword and let out a cry as he sprung upwards and then lunged forward. He managed to gain enough momentum to lift himself several feet into the air, high enough to reach his target. The creature caught sight of him in the second before he aimed the sword, but it had no time to make a defending move before the metal was sinking into its jugular. The sword pierced deep into the soft, slimy flesh. Zack got close enough to feel the creature's body heat against his fingers in the moments before he pulled himself back, the weapon sliding out with him.

As he landed back on the ground, blood had already begun to gush out of the wound. It was a vile looking fluid that was mostly pink with some green clots running through it. Monster blood. Zack grimaced and moved backwards as the Gashtrike roared and flailed in the air, spewing all manner of bodily fluid around the area.

It was only a minute or so before the last ounce of life left its body and it landed on the ground with a loud slap. Zack stared at it for a moment, watching the stained gravel set back into place around the corpse, before a voice spoke up behind him.

"You could have waited for us to get up."

He smirked and turned on his heel, "the thing would have half the town wrecked if I waited _that_ long."

The other guy – SOLDIER 3rd Class Kunsel Amika – pulled off his helmet and rolled his eyes. "Another victory for the great Zack Fair, future SOLDIER 1st Class, huh?"

"You know it," he grinned and fisted his hands on his hips. He then ran his Mako-enhanced eyes over the area around them – a patch of wasteland just outside the east slum district. "Do you think that was the last of 'em?"

Kunsel nodded, "that was the queen. If any others did survive, they'll scurry off to the outer grounds to find a new hive." Zack hummed in agreement and then strapped his soiled sword onto his back. The others with them, a handful of grunt trainees, were already doing their assigned tasks regarding mission clean-up and documentation.

"I guess we should head back to headquarters then."

"You interested in grabbing some grub first?" Kunsel asked while running a hand back through his cropped blond hair.

He was about to nod to the appealing offer, already picturing the head-sized bowl of noodles he'd dig into in their favourite Wutain on the way back – but at that moment something caught his eye. He froze and stared across the distance of the wasteland.

On the far side of the area, several thousand feet away, there was a cluster of decrepit structures that had once served as slum housing before the place was overrun by monsters. There, in the second story window of what looked like a small apartment building, he saw it again. Something bright and golden and… familiar. His eyes barely landed on it before it had disappeared from the window completely.

He straightened and pursed his lips.

"Actually, sorry Kunsel, I have something else to take care of down here. Can you bring the others back?"

His friend glanced at him in confusion. "Something _else_? I'm not going to get a call from the paramedics in an hour, am I?"

Zack frowned. What Kunsel was referring to was the disastrous mission he'd gone on in Wall Market a fortnight ago. They'd both been called to deal with some low-level thugs who'd stolen Shinra property from a supply truck en route to headquarters. However, Kunsel had been out on another assignment at the time and rather than wait for a switch, Zack had decided to go it alone. It was just a bunch of buffed up guys with bats after all; no threat for a mako-enhanced SOLDIER.

He just hadn't factored in the stun batons.

Five of them had come at him in a warehouse at the back of the market district. He'd put up a good fight at first but one of them eventually got him with a shot of electricity straight to his kidney. It was enough to bring him to his knees and gave another of them a chance to crack him across the head with something very hard and very metallic. His memories were a complete mess of dreams and blurred images after that. All he clearly recalled was waking up in the Shinra infirmary with the director and Kunsel at his bedside. Apparently, he'd been lucid enough to stagger to the market pharmacist before passing out. Though why the thugs let him leave alive, no one knew.

He looked to the side, ignoring the sting his pride took whenever the incident was brought up.

"No, it's just someone I need to see down here," he assured.

Twenty minutes later, he was watching the rest of the mission team leave the area. He waited at the fenced entrance until they were a good distance away, before turning around.

He unlatched his weapon from his back as he started to walk back into the darkness of the wasteland. They'd disposed of the most dangerous threat out there that night, but that didn't mean other monsters weren't still hiding in the shadows. One sudden attack from even a low-level creature could prove deadly if unprepared. It was the leading cause of non-illness related death in Midgar, after all.

Thankfully, he didn't run into anything else living in the five or so minutes it took for him to cross the area and reach the old buildings on the other side. The scent of rotting wood and other decay was strong over there. He wrinkled his nose against it and looked to the apartment building. After a moment of consideration, he approached it.

The wooden steps creaked beneath his boots. He held up his sword and let the weapon lead him as he started to climb the steps to the upper floor balcony. All was silent when he got up there, there wasn't even the sound of small rodents that one might expect from a place so long uninhabited. Maybe their fight with the Gashtrikes had scared them all into hiding for the time-being.

Or maybe it was something else.

There was a row of doors on that level, each one likely leading into a separate apartment. He walked past the first two and then stopped outside the third. He immediately noticed that it was open just a crack. It wasn't enough for him to see inside but the detail was telling, since the other doors were all shut.

He narrowed his eyes and strengthened his grip on the sword.

"Shinra SOLDIER. If someone's in there, you better come out now."

Silence. He licked his bottom lip and took another step forward.

"Last chance or I'm coming in!"

Again, there was no reply. He waited another few seconds before giving up with attempting to make verbal contact. He moved forward slowly and reached out with his free hand to push the door the rest of the way open. It gave an awful screech as it did so, the hinges having long since rusted over.

Inside he could see what had once served as an open plan but compact living space. It was about 700 square feet, with dark wood floors and off-white walls. All the furniture had been removed aside from a tattered sofa and a low wooden table positioned in what was probably the main living area. He glanced down at them as he stepped through the doorway before lifting his eyes to look out the window on the wall to his left. It gave a view of the east slum district beyond the wasteland; a pretty little pattern of electric lights and patchwork buildings that threw some illumination back into the room. It wasn't much, barely enough to brighten the square of floor directly in front of that window. Without his enhanced vision, he doubted he'd be able to see very much at all.

He didn't get a chance to study anything further before a voice spoke up behind him.

"Was it smart to come in here alone?"

He'd turned on his heel before the sentence was finished. At the other end of the room, in one corner, there was what would have been a small kitchen area. He could just make out some of the remaining fixtures; a sink and a rusted cooker, but the space was too steeped in shadows for even his enhanced vision to penetrate.

He held the sword in that direction with deadly aim. "Step out and show yourself," he demanded.

When nothing happened in the next few seconds, he was sure the person hiding over there was going to ignore his order; there was nothing to indicate they would do otherwise. But as he continued to watch, some of those shadows began to shift. They pulled apart and separated until a form became visible within them.

It wasn't what Zack had been expecting.

The figure walked forward slowly. The darkness that had hidden them continued to fall away, bit by bit like discarding a winter coat, until eventually they reached the middle of the room where the light from the window was just enough to illuminate their features.

A mass of bright, blond hair was the first thing to catch Zack's eye. It was disorderly and chaotic, with raised spikes and jagged layers that fell around a face that was currently tilted down and away from him. Zack ran his own eyes downwards, taking in the heart shaped chin and thin neck, then the slender limbs and long, flat torso. The person was male certainly, and young. Younger than him anyway.

"You're… a kid?" He spoke in some wonder. The question had been mostly rhetorical, for himself, but the other obviously heard it. They lifted their chin and tilted their eyes to look at him. Zack felt his breath leave his body. The eyes staring over at him were the brightest blue he had ever seen, brighter than the sky in Gongaga during the summertime, than the sea in Sol… They were almost _glowing_ , like twin orbs of elemental materia set into a face that was just as perfect as any doll's, with soft but angular features, a strong jaw, and porcelain white skin.

"Why… why have you been following me?" He questioned sharply, trying to stomp down his shock and focus on the situation at hand.

"So, you noticed?" The voice was low and a little bit hoarse. The other kept his glittering eyes on him, his pale lashes creating shadows against his cheekbones.

Holy moly

Zack looked away for a moment and forced himself to take in the question. Yes, he had noticed. For the past few months, on every mission, he'd gotten the uneasy feeling that he and his team were being watched. He didn't know if it was natural instincts or something to do with his enhancements, but several times he'd been struck with the sensation of eyes on the back of his head. Whenever he turned to look, however, no one was there. He'd started to write it off as paranoia; an effect of the constant warnings from the company about enemies in the city.

But then, a fortnight ago, Wall Market happened...

"Were you there, the night I was knocked out?" He asked, his hand automatically wanting to go to the back of his head. Images flashed in his mind – or more accurately they were memories – of staring up at the rotted beams of the warehouse ceiling, scarred and muscled men gathered around him, one of them holding a steel baton wrapped in bloody barbed wire and getting ready to strike a killing blow with it. But the hit never landed. There was just light after that, paleness… blond hair.

"I saw you at that warehouse, didn't I?" He paused and waited for a reply. After a moment, the heart-shaped chin dipped in a nod.

"You were brave to take on those men on your own."

He arched a brow and then shrugged, "that's the job."

The blond looked upwards in contemplation, a very faint smile breaking across his lips. Nice lips; a deep indent beneath the lower that made it long and straighter than the bowed top. Again, Zack mentally scowled at himself to focus.

"Right… you're the heroes, aren't you? Shinra SOLDIER…"

Zack couldn't tell if the words were meant to be praise or mocking. "We try to be," he said neutrally, "I wasn't much of a hero that night though," he went on, holding out his free hand, "so should I thank you for getting me help then?"

The blond said nothing, but something in his expression was telling. He _had_ helped Zack that night. He'd saved his life. The question was _why_.

"What were you doing in Wall Market?" He asked next, "you don't look like the type to hang around there." Just as he pointed that out, a sickening thought came to him. "You're not one of Corneo's _friends_ are you?" The other was certainly attractive enough to gain the attention of the pig of the market; he was a prize that a lot of men would want to claim for themselves. Men that thought people were things to be claimed, anyway.

The other's lips twitched slightly, and he shook his head. "No."

"So, what were you doing then?" Zack asked fast, "following me? Were you following me again tonight?" When he got no answer to that, the blond reverting to his earlier silence, he inhaled slowly and took a moment to think. Another dark thought came to him then, worse than the idea of the stranger belonging to the Corneo.

"You know who else makes a habit of watching Shinra personnel?" He started slowly, tilting his head to the side and studying the blonde's reaction to his words. Their expression didn't change even a fraction. "Spies," he went on, "from Wutai most likely."

He made himself take a step forward. As much as he was trying to put on a professional, even threatening demeanour, he was finding it hard to maintain his cool in the face of, to put it bluntly, a beauty that he had never expected to be met with in real life – male or female. He knew he was attractive himself and that got him the company of the same, but this stranger… their eyes, their skin. It was something a guy could very easily lose their mind to, like sirens in those old wives' tales from the coast.

He didn't want to be one of those doomed sailors.

"Is that what you are, a Wutai spy?" He gritted his teeth at the thought. The stranger's features were the opposite of those of the dark Wutians, but that meant nothing. Midgar's enemy were clever in their espionage. Zack had seen women, men and even children of all types and class levels brought in for questioning at headquarters. This stranger could just have been another pretty export along with their silks and marble idols.

The blond moved his eyes from his face to the sword still pointed towards him. "If I were a spy, why would I have helped you in Wall Market?"

Zack shrugged. "To gain my trust maybe?"

"Doesn't really seem like you trust me," the other pointed out.

"Then what _do_ you want from me?" He asked back sharply, "you led me in here for a reason, right?"

He was surprised when he received a nod in response to the question. At this point he wasn't expecting straight-forward answers from the stranger.

He watched silently as the blond shifted so he was facing the window more. As he did, his profile was lit up further and his features gained new dimensions. Zack was able to see the first flaw then in the shape of dark circles under those big eyes. He realised that the stranger looked tired, and there was something almost frail about the way he was holding his body. His shoulders were slightly hunched, arms held close to his waist with his fingers almost covered by the long sleeves of the shirt he was wearing. The clothes, Zack noticed then, were not nearly as refined as the person wearing them. Heavy work boots, a pair of old, thread-bare cargo pants with several jutting pockets, and a ragged long-sleeved t-shirt that looked a size too big around the arms, neck and hem. The material was all dark, though in the light he could see a mix of greys and other tones, rather than just black.

"I wanted to speak to you," the blond began, his calm voice cutting off his observation, "because I need your help."

Zack arched a brow in surprise. "My help?" He parroted, "are you in some kind of trouble?"

The blond pressed his lips together before motioning towards the tattered sofa. "Maybe we should sit."

Zack let out a laugh of exasperation. "You think I'm going to let my guard down that easily? I don't even know your name!"

At that, the other looked up at him again, his bright eyes shining vividly as he proceeded to slowly look him over, not bothering to hide that he was doing it like most people might. "I'm Cloud," he said at length, setting his eyes back on his face.

Zack tilted his head. " _Cloud_?" He repeated.

"Yes."

"Like…" he raised his finger towards the ceiling and squinted at him. The blond nodded again but his expression had fallen somewhat flat. It seemed like the first genuine expression Zack had received from him, one of annoyance, and despite everything Zack found it funny.

"So, Cloud," he said again, "is it just Cloud?"

The other looked to the side, "I don't think there's a need for anymore, after all this time."

"Huh?"

"Nothing…" Cloud turned his attention to the sofa again and then walked slowly over to it, almost completely soundless as he rounded the corner and took a seat on the edge of one dusty cushion. He rested his arms on his knees; his pale fingers tangling together, and looked up at him expectantly. Zack heaved a sigh before shaking his head and lowering his sword. He kept it in his hand as he walked around and took a seat on the edge of the table, where he could stay in front of the other and watch his every move.

"So you're saying you need my help with something? Couldn't you have just asked instead of following me around?"

Cloud made a sound of agreement before speaking. "I needed to be sure you were the right one to ask… what I'm going to tell you involves dangerous parties on both our sides."

Zack sat back and considered him. He was trying to find something sly or deceitful in the calm, almost emotionless façade the blond was displaying. He couldn't, but that didn't mean it wasn't there, only that the other might be well-practiced in swaying minds.

"By my side, do you mean Shinra?"

Cloud nodded. "Your company has become involved in something that it shouldn't. Its actions could result in the destruction of millions."

Zack heaved a sigh of frustration. "If this is something to do with the Mako plants–"

"It's not," Cloud cut him off. He leaned forward and looked at him seriously, "though Shinra's draining of the planet's energy is something that will spell destruction overtime, what I'm talking about is a much more pressing threat." He paused for a moment before continuing. "Have you heard of the Jenova Calamity?"

Zack arched a brow in surprise. Of course he and everyone else had heard the legend of the "Calamity that fell from the sky". According to the story, it or "she" was an extra-terrestrial being who landed on Gaia two thousand years ago. She was a parasite whose aim was to absorb all of the planet's energy, killing it, before moving on. Jenova caused great destruction in her quest, obliterating most of the ancient race of the Cetra, before their last few members managed to combine their powers to defeat her. But the cost was great, the Cetra never recovered their numbers and dwindled into nothing, while their sister race, the humans, grew to dominate the planet.

"It's just a story," he said, "a myth."

Cloud nodded. "Some parts have fallen to fiction," he agreed, "but the story is as true as any of the planet's history. Jenova did visit us all those years ago and her presence proved fatal for most of the ancient race." He paused again to take a breath. "But two truths have been hidden about the event."

Zack listened, still sceptical but enraptured by the soft tone of the other's voice and the earnestness with which he was speaking.

"The first is that the Cetra never destroyed Jenova. They just contained her. Imprisoned her far beneath the planet's surface where they hoped she would never emerge from."

"So, Jenova is still _alive_?" Zack interrupted, giving the other an incredulous look, "that there's some creepy alien woman thing buried out there somewhere?" He motioned with his head towards the window and land beyond it.

Cloud didn't react to his mocking tone. "She was for a long time," he said simply, "but not anymore. Her grave was marked by ice and peril, but decades ago one organisation developed the technology needed to delve into it."

He looked at Zack expectantly and after a moment, he caught on. "You think Shinra dug up the Calamity?" He let out a laugh, "look kid, I don't know what fanatics you've been listening to but that's crazy. Shinra is an energy company. It has no business with aliens or any other science fiction crap."

"You're SOLDIER," Cloud said then, "you're the heroes, right? The best of the best. With superhuman strength, speed, and agility."

"What about it?" Zack said impatiently. Cloud sat back a little.

"You didn't get all that just by training."

"No, we're enhanced," Zack said plainly, holding up a hand. The process of becoming SOLDIER was public knowledge. Candidates were injected with high doses of raw mako. It was a dangerous process that many didn't survive. But the trade-off was that those who did – like him – were left with all the benefits that Cloud had listed. "That's not a secret."

Cloud hummed in agreement. "Shinra has always used science to mix the natural with the unnatural. Your existence is proof of that." Cloud leaned forward a little more, half of his profile in shadows and the other lit up so his one eye glowed vividly, "but the creation of SOLDIER isn't their main goal. In fact, it was a fortuitous accident in their quest to achieve their true aim. They are seeking a power greater than that, a promised land that will secure their rule for millennia, and they intend to use the Calamity to do it."

Zack stayed silent. He wanted to deny the ridiculous claims, but something about the way Cloud said them made it hard to do. Whether there was any truth to them or not, the blond sure seemed to believe what he was saying.

"How would you know about all this?" He asked instead of arguing more about the legitimacy of the theory. "If Shinra was trying to do something like you're alleging, only the innermost circle would know about it. Unless you are a spy after all. Maybe not from Wutai but from some other anti-Shinra organisation?"

"I'm not a spy," Cloud denied again. "I said there were two things that people get wrong about the story of the Calamity. The first is that Jenova wasn't destroyed by the Cetra. The _second_ ," he said with emphasis, "is that it wasn't just humans that were left on the planet after her siege."

Zack stared at him blankly for a moment. Then what he said connected and he frowned. "You're talking about another race?"

Cloud looked down at his hands.

"When Jenova came to the planet, she was able to take on the form of the species that lived there. She walked the land as a human woman; rather beautiful, it's told, able to sway any man to her. And she enjoyed all things that a woman did."

Zack made a face. "The alien woman _slept_ with human men?" The thought made his stomach turn. _Unnatural_. That's the word that came to mind. It was also the word Cloud used to describe him, wasn't it?

Cloud nodded. "Jenova was interested in more than just enjoying herself, though. She knew the Cetra were gathering the power to overcome her, so before that happened she created a means of continuing herself."

"She had a child?" Zack filled in.

Cloud looked away from his hands and stared him in the eye. "The son of the Calamity. First of his kind."

A silence swept into the room on the heels of the statement. Like Shiva casting ice-spells and freezing them in place.

Zack pursed his lips and looked down at his own reflection in the blade of his sword. "So not only is Jenova alive, but she has alien children walking around the planet too? It's impossible."

"Not children," Cloud corrected him, "just child. There is only one blood-born son of Jenova and he isn't an alien, not fully. His father was a human man and he too is flesh and blood. But he is also an immortal, with power unlike any that has ever existed on this planet. The first of his kind," he said again, and his voice had taken on an almost reverent tone. Something about it made Zack's anger spike even further.

"And this son went on to have more children?" He questioned blandly, dragging his eyes away from his reflection.

"Yes," Cloud confirmed, "but not in the way you're thinking. The son was born with a means to sire others like him not by birth but through blood." Cloud then unclasped his fingers and ran one of them in a line along his other palm. Over a vein. "His blood."

Zack followed the movement of the pale finger before he sat back and let out a hiss of frustration.

"What you're saying is crazy! If any of this was true, how come I've never heard of this superhuman race? If the son is so powerful, why didn't he rescue his freak alien mother himself and just wipe out the planet with her?"

"The time hasn't come," was Cloud's vague and cryptic answer to that. "He's been waiting. All these centuries, biding his time and building numbers. Certain elements need to be in place before he can act on his plans."

"You talk like you know this guy," Zack snapped then. Again, there was something about the way Cloud spoke of this "son" that he found agitating. There was such a weight to his words, as if they contained something sacred.

Cloud moved his finger away from his hand and smiled in an emotionless way. His features were cast into shadows as he lowered his head but continued to stare up at him with his big eyes. His next words had Zack's thoughts coming to a standstill.

"How could I not know the one who sired me?"

There was silence.

The SOLDIER felt goosebumps break out on his skin as he searched the other's expression for a sign that he was joking. But Cloud just continued to watch him back. The expression on his face was void of emotion; as if he hadn't done anything but state a simple fact. It was unnerving.

"Sired you?" Zack repeated finally, "you're saying you're one of this supposed race? An immortal." He ran his eyes up and down the other's body, "do you think I'm an idiot?"

"I know it's hard to believe–"

"Just stop," he cut off sharply. He shook his head then and stood up from the table so he could pace a few steps across the floor. He twitched his hands and ran one back through his hair, then glanced at the door. _I should just leave_ , he thought to himself. It would be better than staying and listening to anymore of this insane tale.

As if sensing his thoughts, he heard Cloud move behind him, getting to his feet as well. "It's not going to work like this," he said strangely. Zack frowned but kept his eyes forward. He could hear more shuffling sounds from behind him before Cloud spoke again.

"I need to show you."

"Show me what?" Finally, Zack moved to face the other again. However, just as he turned around, a flash of intense brightness had him closing his eyes. "Wh–" He reeled back and moved his arm to cover his face as a sudden gust of air blew over him.

The brightness lasted for another few seconds before fading again. There was quiet for a moment before he lowered his arms and inched his eyes open. They widened to their maximum at the sight in front of them.

Cloud was still standing across from him, staring at him calmly as ever, but now he'd taken his shirt off and…

There were wings.

Wings. White and feathered, spanning over a foot in each direction and blocking most of the tiny space of the apartment. Cloud was between them. No… that wasn't right… they were part of him.

Zack took another step back, moving his mouth but unable to get any real words out, "you're… they are..."

"Some of us use the term Half-Winged for us," Cloud looked to the left of himself, at one of his _appendages_. "Though it doesn't really apply to me I guess."

"You have wings," Zack finally found his voice, "are you some kind of angel?" That's what they looked like; angel's wings. Something not of this planet, they were too beautiful for it, the kind of thing people should bow down and worship. He felt like he should do that now.

Cloud's expression shuttered. "Not an angel. The opposite I think."

Zack didn't believe that. The opposite to an angel was a monster, and that's not what he was looking at. He looked at one of the wings as it shifted slightly, a ripple going down through the soft feathers.

"You can touch, if you like." He glanced back to Cloud's face guiltily, feeling like he'd been caught ogling something intimate. Cloud's lips twitched a bit and he nodded in reassurance.

He knew he should probably refuse; he had no idea what he was dealing with and to a SOLDIER, the unknown meant danger. But at that moment something was pulling him towards the other, almost like a physical force. It overrode his logic and he found himself slowly re-latching his sword and taking a few careful steps forward.

The feathers were as soft as they looked. He was almost ashamed of his tanned, calloused fingers against their near supernatural whiteness. But he couldn't resist dragging them over the primary ones covering the outer bone. Beneath the softness, the joint felt both solid and delicate. The wing shifted a little in reaction and he looked to Cloud.

"You really aren't human, are you?" He asked. But it was a stupid question. He'd known it since the other first appeared to him. His mysterious beauty, and the things he'd said and done, it all led to a logic that he'd been trying to deny. Cloud's somewhat sad smile just confirmed it.

"Once," the blond murmured, "not anymore."

Zack ran his fingers through the feathers a few more times before making himself step back. "The son of the Calamity made you this way? How did he do it?"

"It's a long story," Cloud said.

Zack shrugged and motioned around them. "Don't think we're going to be interrupted anytime soon."

The other glanced in the direction of the doorway. "I suppose not." He moved then to take a few steps towards the window, stopping there and staring out at the view of the slums. As he did, he turned and exposed his back to Zack for the first time. The SOLDIER followed the smooth, curved line of his spine and then up to where the wings were embedded beneath the shoulder blades. He thought it might look unsettling, like a mutation or deformity, but even the joint where the skin met the feather and bones was seamless and smooth.

Cloud took an audible breath and kept his eyes on the window, staring out at the lights of the slums.

"I was seventeen years old when I met the immortal, Sephiroth Jenova…"


	2. Fall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second chapter is up, we're going to spend some time going into Cloud's backstory for a while now. This is long, but I hope it’s enjoyable.  
> Disclaimer: I do not own FFVII or any of its characters, they belong to the amazing people at Square Enix.

I was seventeen years old when I met the immortal, Sephiroth Jenova.

Back then I lived in a crowded little mountain town called Nibelheim, located just off the edge of the river separating it from what is now known as Cosmo Canyon. My father was never known to me, just a stranger that my mother had spent a summer night with and never saw again afterwards. My mother herself passed when I was young from a blood fever. My aunt took me in after her death. Ena Lockheart was her name. Her husband, Ned Lockheart, owned a small sundry shop located on the edge of the town, right by the river docks, and it was in a little three-bedroom flat above the shop that I was raised along with their own six children.

Needless to say, it was crowded quarters, but everything about life then was. The town itself was just a gathering of crudely constructed buildings and narrow, dirt streets. The buildings were all pressed tightly together, with heavy roofs and patchwork fastenings made from whatever materials were available over the years. It was the very rough beginnings of modernity from the cities getting mixed up with the crude obscurity of the rural past.

Most of the town’s income came from the river. The docks beside our little shop were quiet and neglected in the winter months, but from spring to summer's end would always be packed and bustling with activity; vessel boats roped in against the wharf to unload daily catches, fish stalls set up on the walkways where the mongers would bellow their wares from one end of the day to the other.

I remember all the sounds still; the rough voices of the vendors waking me up in the mornings through the thin windows of the flat, the crates scraping and sloshing in the mens' grips, the blades thudding into the wooden planks at each new cut...

I remember as well how at the end of the day, the berth would be soiled and wet with gore. The walkways and piers would be soaked with blood and slippery innards until men came to wash it away with buckets of river water. On the warmest days we couldn't open a window or door in the shop for the stench of it, and would need to wrap fabric around our noses and mouths when going out to avoid becoming ill. Yes… I remember the scent of blood in the air, strong and metallic in the heat, drawing the water monsters up from the blackness under the piers to grab for their meals of pink guts and severed heads and tails.

It sounds like misery, I know, an awful kind of rough existence by today's standards. Maybe it was. The thing is, though, that we really didn't know any different back then. That was simply how people like us lived; few luxuries, hard work and daily struggles. As an orphan, I was lucky to have a roof over my head, and with my uncle's shop failing at the start of this story, the best I was hoping for was a commission in the region patrols where I could earn a wage and help pay back some of the debt owed to the Lockhearts.

But in the meantime, I was content with my situation. I was happy in my quiet way. I loved my cousins more than anything else in the world and felt no burden in helping manage them. My aunt and uncle were kind people and the household, for all its failings and my ever-present insecurity about my place within it, was a cheerful one. After the shop was closed every evening, we'd spend hours up in the living quarters listening to our aunt, and sometimes uncle, read out the newest novel from the stalls, or make up their own stories during the winter when trade was sparse. Our aunt would sing sometimes, mostly songs she made up herself; fairy hymns that made my dreams come alive for nights afterwards. They taught us our prayers in these evenings, and to read and write. Sometimes they’d make us take turns reading out chapters or religious passages and then practise writing lines before bed. Literacy wasn't common or expected of our class back then, so it was a credit to my aunt that all seven of us were competent in it by the age of eight.

I was quiet and small in my youth, and often the target of the town bullies because of my circumstances. I really only had two close companions growing up; Tifa, the eldest of my cousins, and a neighbour boy named Drogus Greenwelshe. When not needed for work or chores, the three of us would spend long days away from the town exploring the mountains. This was a dangerous pastime since there was always a threat of monsters hiding around the vale, but we were young and seemingly invincible and trusted the wards placed on the land to protect us. By the time I was a teenager I was able to kill the smaller monsters we did come across; I'd been practising since I was a child.

Over the years, we'd managed to collect a handful of hidden nooks that we often revisited; caves, mountain springs, and wide-open lily fields. In these places we would pass the time swimming, lying about under the sun, or reading the new monster encyclopaedias that the merchants brought from the cities – and my aunt disapproved of.

It was on one of these days, as the three of us were sitting around on the flat rocks of a small pool clearing that looked down into the valley of our town, that we spotted a carriage making its way over the winding dirt road from the east. Tifa spotted it first, calling our attention to it when it was still a dark blot in the distance.

It was the finest thing I'd ever seen in my life up to that point. The body of the coach was a rich, lacquered ebony all over. Its four large wheels were made from solid silver, and matching trimmings gilded its doors and roof. Summon-like figures had been placed on the four upper corners, each one intricately carved and standing proud like guardian beings. The carriage was pulled by a pair of black feathered chocobos. They were great muscular beasts of a far different breed than the animals the farmers in the town owned.

To our astonishment, two more carriages of the same kind followed not long behind the first one. They were equally as magnificent and varied only in decoration; the second having painted panels on the doors and frame, and the third with bronze rather than silver gilding.

After them, a long procession of smaller coaches, wagons and riders followed. These were no doubt the belongings and servants of the wealthy owners in the first vehicles.

"Do you think they belong to royals?" Tifa asked, standing up on her bare feet with her skirts pulled up in a puff around her knees. I shook my head to say I didn't know, and Drogus answered the same.

"They're beautiful," she said.

It was only when we returned home that evening that we found out that the manor in the mountains had been purchased by new owners. The manor was a large, old-century style mansion located about five miles north of our town – known locally as the Nibelheim Mansion. The estate compromised the sprawling house itself which was said to have over 300 rooms, along with a courtyard, large stable grounds and acres of surrounding land. This actually included that which our town was built on. The manor had once been owned by a younger brother of a king and the first people to live in Nibelheim were his tenants. Once the dynasty was abolished, the estate became residence to a series of smaller families of good lineage. The tenant system mostly fell away, though for many years townspeople were still required to pay taxes to the landowners. At the time of my story, Nibelheim Mansion had been abandoned for decades, after the last good family moved to one of the newer cities.

The younger children had been astonished to hear we'd caught sight of the new owners, even though we hadn't _really_ , and we spent the evening describing over and over again the finery of the velvet curtains covering the carriage windows, the big ornate wheels and the fancily dressed coachmen controlling the chocobos. In the end, I think we added imaginary details, just for their amusement.

I'm sure we seem like simple things, to be so taken with a glimpse of fancy vehicles, but again you have to understand that things were different back then. People of our kind thought of the upper-class as more than just glamorous, wealthy beings. They were the cherished ones; blessed with fortune and superior blood and therefor closer to the gods. They were children of the planet, while the common population were the servants at the alters, ready to be sacrificed to war, disease or industry when required. Perhaps that's still how the world looks at the elite, but back then it was definitely considered something special to get even a glimpse of the better class with one’s own eyes.

All this being said, I wasn't actually that excited about the whole thing, and aside from recounting it to my small cousins, I didn't think much of it afterwards. There were other, more practical concerns at the time.

As I mentioned, things were not going well with the shop. It had been doing poorly that year, injured by region-wide tax and by competition from peddlers and travellers from the cities who sold much of the same merchandise at far better prices. My uncle had needed to reduce his inventory by a quarter by mid-Summer that year, and that meant that there was barely enough money coming in to make a profit.

Tifa and I were the only ones old enough to notice the deepening lines of worry on my aunt's face as she continued our education in the evenings, or the way uncle's hair went from grey to white almost in one season. When we returned home that evening to see that hardly anything had been moved from the shelves again all day, I made up my mind of what I would do.

After we had our supper and the smallest children were put to bed, I left the flat to visit the local patrol captain that my uncle had spoken to on my behalf. I was hoping to see if there would be an opportunity for me to begin training as soon as possible.

The captain was staying in a small boat which he lived in between services. It was docked about a half-mile down the peer from the flat. After making the journey down there, I found him sitting in the cabin and more than a bit drunk. With a candle lantern between us, we discussed my position and he’d been more agreeable than I hoped. His last trainee had been tragically killed on his first mission, he told me, so he had an opening available. Though I was saddened to hear of his previous novice’s fate, I was heartened by the news and thanked him for the opportunity. I ignored how his eyes, yellow in the light like a cat's, ran over my face and hair repeatedly as we spoke. He seemed to be taking in my features with an attention to detail he was otherwise too drunk to possess.

This wasn’t an unusual experience for me. Since reaching my sixteenth year I had become aware that my appearance caught people's attention. My wild bright hair and blue eyes were not common in the region and I stood out among the mostly dark-haired, brown-eyed townspeople. It had even started to get me some attention from girls my own age – some of whom had been tormenters when we were children. A few of Tifa’s friends would hang around the shop during the hours I was working and my cousin would tease me that they were waiting for me to pick one as a wife. I didn't pay any heed to them. And though I’d never received attention from someone of my own sex as I did with the captain, I ignored that too, shook one of his hands and wiped the sweat away as I exited the vessel. 

The sun had fully set while I was in that little boat and it made walking back along the slippery pier a treacherous undertaking. The water was black beneath the walkway, only moving shadows – fish or monster – visible below the surface. The boats were rocking in the current, knocking and cracking against each-other.

My eyes were on the lights of the town ahead of me. The streetlamps had all been lit and I could make out the nearer buildings in their hazy orange glow. But the more I went towards them, the less clear they seemed to become. I realised then that a sort of mist was beginning to set over the pier. It seemed to descend fast and before I knew it, I could hardly see inches in front of myself.

The fog was a strange one. Firstly, it wasn’t usual to experience them at that time of the year and never so suddenly. It was also strange that even though it was heavy, it didn’t feel cold. It didn’t really feel like any weather that I can recall, almost like I was walking through low clouds.

My breath came in thick, visible puffs as I reached out with my hand to try to clear it. At first, I could still make out the direction of the town because of the glow from the lights, but a few steps later I stumbled over a particularly slippery patch of wood and ended up falling to one knee. That made me lose my sense of way completely. All there was then was an unending dense mist that blinded me in every direction, so that there seemed to be nothing behind me, nothing ahead of me, to my left or to my right. I rose slowly to my feet, my breathing loud and echoing in my own ears, and took more careful steps forward. I was terrified of going in the wrong direction and walking right into the water. I knew that I’d never get out again if that happened.

So, every step from there came with a pausing of my heartbeat, and every time my foot landed on something solid, I felt like I had cheated death. I had only gotten a few more yards at this slow pace, however, when a sudden, terrible noise broke out in the air.

Freezing in terror, I could only stand still and listen as it continued behind me. _Screaming_. It was someone screaming. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from… I couldn’t even tell if it was a man or woman, only that it was human and terribly agonized, as if they were suffering greatly.

With tears fast filling my own eyes at the horror of it, I turned several times to try to locate the source. I started moving then in what I thought was its direction, completely forgetting my caution to avoid the edge of the walkway. All I knew was that the person was suffering, and I needed to get to them.

I don’t know how long I walked on blindly through the haze. No matter how far I went, I didn’t seem to be getting any closer to the person. Their screaming continued for all that time but eventually I had to stop to catch my own breath.

No sooner had I bent to rest my hands on my knees, than the screaming abruptly stopped. I looked up and waited.

But what was I waiting for? I didn’t really know; maybe for whatever had hurt that person to come after me next. My mind wasn’t really working by then. It was almost like whatever the fog was, it had breached my own skull and blanketed my thoughts. There was nothing but it… nothing…

And then something.

The mist seemed to clear a path right before my eyes. It wasn’t very much, but just enough to reveal the shadowed form standing further down the peer. I couldn’t make out their features at all. Only that they were tall, monstrously tall, with what looked like unusually long hair falling around their torso, and flickering stars for eyes.

The fog grew stronger and stronger in my mind, and soon it felt like everything was liquid and swirling. My arms tingled with gooseflesh but I wasn’t able to lift them to rub the sensation away. I didn’t feel like I had control at all.

"W… Wh–” I tried to ask a question, desperately, but my tongue wouldn’t work.

A glimmer of white teeth.

“Come to me.”

The voice shook through me, and the smile. The awful moon's smile. Something inside me warned me not to, but I was moving before I could help it. I don’t know how long it took. It seemed an eternity in which I took slow steps towards the figure as they – he – stood waiting for me. He was something between an angel and a demon standing there. Cast into darkness, his back to the sky, I couldn't make out his features aside from the silver hair hanging long around his powerful body, and the flickering of his sharp eyes reflecting what little moonlight there was. They were green.

And then I saw something else, too. Something my weakened mind could make no sense of. It was to the right of him, a part of his body that no human could possess. My body started to shake, and the accusation choked up from my throat.

"Am I… did I fall?" I imagined the leeches sucking my wet skin, my body rocking in the water, my eyes staring sightless at the sky.

The smile grew. "Where is there to fall to?"

I shook my head and wanted to move away, but couldn't.

"Why are you here?” I looked at that part of him as it shifted in the air, “Did I fall? Am I down there now?" I thought of the black water, the monsters climbing up from it.

"Why would you fall?"

"We all fall, don't we?" I insisted, I think I was pulling at my hair. It was wild and thick with the damp air; I couldn't get my fingers through it.

"Do we not rise again?"

I hurt myself with my fingers. "No..."

"Stop."

My fingers let go of my hair immediately. My hands were shaking as I lowered them to my sides and stared up into his face of blackness.

"Tell me your name."

I gave him my full name without a second's hesitation, I could do nothing else.

"Cloud," he repeated, the name coming out from his mouth like air instead of speech, "it's late for you to be out, Cloud." The voice felt like it was inside of me, lulling me into a swoon, warming me even as I shook. "Go to bed now. Don't stop until you are warm under your blankets. Sleep then. No more bad thoughts about falling."

I sighed at the thought. "What about you?"

The eyes gleamed, the white teeth.

"Go on now, dream of rising, not falling."

I nodded, turning on my heel and looking towards the buildings burning bright and clear in the distance.

I remember nothing clearly from that point, just waking up the next morning in the bed I shared with two of my cousins. It would be a long time before I remembered anything from that night.

What I do remember was that was the first morning I woke with a headache.

* * *

One afternoon, almost a week later I think, I was helping my aunt move some display cabinets and shelves around the shop – she was attempting to make our fewer commodities look more attractive to customers within the dusty, wooden front room – when Tifa came running in.

"Mother," she called, holding her brown skirts and apron up from the floor as she rushed over to us.

"What is it, child?" My aunt answered quickly, taking in her daughter's hurried, flustered movements. They were so alike, the most out of all of us with their silky dark hair and oval eyes. Tifa was taller though, stronger built where her mother was more delicate. She’d come to be known as a beauty in the town, garnering as much male callers as I’d had female.

"The lords from the Manor are coming into town! There's a request for all business-holders to gather for a meeting with them,” Tifa explained to us, “father needs to go."

"A meeting?" Aunt Ena put down the baskets she'd been holding and dusted off her hands as she went around the counter to stand in front of her daughter. Tifa nodded.

"They've ordered it in the church within the hour."

Gossip in town had informed us that Nibelheim Mansion had become host to three foreign lords. One owned the estate and the other two were his companions. There wasn't much known about them, only that they were all of great wealth and had arrived without the company of wives or children. Until that day, they had not interacted with the town in any way.

Aunt Ena shook her head, fingers going to her neck to massage the skin there; a nervous habit of hers. "Now what could they want?" She whispered at neither of us. Her eyes were on the small front window as if she could see the future through it.

"Will we lose the business, Mother? Will they take over the town or bring back taxes?" Tifa reached forward to clutch her mother's hands. It took Aunt Ena a moment to snap out of her daydream, but when she did, she shook her head firmly and shifted their hands so it was she holding her daughter's.

"You do not need to fret about these things, Tifa," she said firmly, catching and holding her daughter's eyes before switching them over to me, "either of you. It's for your father and me to worry about." After that she stepped back and started to take off her work apron. "I'm going up to Ned. Cloud, leave this for now and we'll come back to it."

I nodded and shoved the cabinet I’d been moving back against the wall as she went around the counter and through the door behind that led up to the flat.

Tifa waited until the sounds of her footsteps were muffled on the second floor before she spoke. "Will they take the shop from us? Buy out the town so we'll have to live in the cities like coal children?" Her voice was hushed and full of dread. My cousin was passionate in her emotions, displaying the highest energy when cheerful but falling into deep anxiety at the first sign of any trouble. Dramatic, as the say now.

"We can't know what they want," I said back, walking over to the shop counter and taking up the rag resting on it to dust off my hands, "it's best to just wait and see." I winced then, my hand snapping up to my forehead, "and we can't... upset the little ones by looking worried," I finished a bit breathlessly.

"I know," Tifa agreed. She watched me rub at my head, "is your head still troubling you, Cloud?"

I closed my eyes in frustration. As I said, on the morning following my excursion to the captain’s boat, I had woken up with a headache that started as a dull throbbing but grew worse throughout the day. I went to bed the next night hoping to find it gone after some rest, but the problem had only escalated. Every day I woke up a bit worse than the one before. I call what I was suffering from headaches, but they more resembled what are now diagnosed as migraines, with the bouts of debilitating nausea and flashing vision that accompanied them. I had no idea what was causing them and my aunt's potions didn't seem to help. The others thought it might be the close weather, but I think I knew something else was wrong with me.

It wasn't just the headaches I'd been suffering from. Every morning since that first one, I'd wake up feeling as if I hadn't been asleep at all, as if all of my energy had been drained, _pulled_ from my body like a wrung dishcloth on the mongers' bloody stalls. My limbs felt weak and boneless, my organs heavy and slow. To simply move was becoming a chore.

More worrying than all that, though it shouldn't seemed to have been, was how my mind was changing. There were these… thoughts in my head, there from the moment I woke until I slept again. I can only describe them as the residue of nightly dreams I couldn't remember upon waking. Shuttering, confusing things like a candle flickering behind my eyes. And sometimes I’d get painful flashes of what felt like memories but couldn't have been… They frightened me more than anything else and made me dread the night-time.

But why? Did I know even then, so young and ignorant of the dark powers of the world, that something was changing?

"Not so bad," I answered Tifa, declining to speak of all that, and of just how much helping my aunt move the shelves had drained me. I didn't want her to have any knowledge of these things; I dreaded not being allowed to pull my weight with the rest of them. I would have hid the headaches too, if it were possible not to react to them in front of the others.

"You're so pale, cousin," she said anyway, running her eyes over me.

"Just the work," I murmured back. Then to distract her I asked if she'd seen the lords. She hadn't, but wanted to.

So, the two of us followed Ned out of the shop when he made for the meeting. We met Drogus on the road and as Ned went on straight to the church, we headed over to the Greenwelshe’s pub. The pub was one of the tallest buildings in the town. By climbing onto the roof, we had a good view down into most of the streets, including the one the church was on.

It wasn’t surprising that the meeting was to take place there. The church was the finest building in Nibelheim. The walls were made in the old style of stone bricks, but the windows had at the time been recently fitted with modern stained glass. The patch of garden at the front was well maintained and sewn with wildflowers, while tooth-like gravestones stood up in scattered clusters in the back.

The business-owners had gathered in a little group in the front. Ned and Drogus's father were among them, murmuring with the others in a silent, nervous thrum. Each one of them was dressed in their Sunday finery and combed and groomed as best as the time would allow.

We waited a while, Drogus and Tifa on one side of the pub's large chimney, me on the other – trying to hide from them just how much I was clinging to the bricks after what felt like an exhausting climb up there.

I was resting my heavy head against the blackened stones, my hair falling in front of my eye, turned orange in the setting sun. I could see the river in the distance, and the spot where the captain’s boat had been moored along the pier. He’d left, I’d been told, on an urgent matter just the morning after I’d visited him. I hadn’t heard a word of him since and could only hope that he hadn’t forgotten our agreement. Though with the way I was feeling, I wasn’t sure if that would matter anymore.

“Look, there!”

I snapped my eyes upwards at my cousin’s exclamation. Her finger was pointed forward and I followed its direction. There, I saw the three lords appear on the edge of the town. Each one was riding a large, beastly chocobo of the same kind that had pulled their carriages on that first day.

They were, surely, the very figures of what the words 'foreign lords' conjured in our sheltered minds.

The man on the left, riding a russet bird with gold fastenings around its neck, was tall and lean and had flaming auburn hair that the red evening had set on fire. He looked groomed and well-turned out in a wine-coloured long-tailed coat, a ruffled shirt fastened high under his chin, and cream riding pants.

The man on the right was not as finely accoutred but looked similarly impressive in a black and grey vest-jacket with billowing white shirt arms. His hair was dark and straight. He was very broad-shouldered and sat straight in his saddle, contrasting with the relaxed posture of the auburn-haired man.

These things I noticed in seconds and not in any great detail though. I couldn't, because it was the middle rider who captured all of my attention. Who made my fingers dig into the stones of the chimney until later I would see that soot was embedded deep under my nails.

The rider was tall, heads taller than most men even sitting on his bird, and powerful looking. His body seemed to be made of solid muscle that was both lean and broad in perfect harmony. Like nothing I'd ever seen before, he had long silver hair that was the same colour as the blade of a sword. It fell around him like an angel's veil, blazing in the sunset. His skin was pale and he was dressed in all dark clothes, a long overcoat with fastenings along the chest, thick leather riding boots reaching up to his knees. His eyes were a very sharp green and unsettlingly feline-like, though I'm not sure that was a detail I noticed at that point, from the distance. I just remember my breath catch in my throat, my entire system overwhelmed at the sight of something that looked like it had risen straight from the lifestream.

"Do you see them Cloud?" Tifa called from the other side of the chimney. I swallowed and nodded.

"Yes," I nodded again. My heart was stiff in my chest and I don't know why I felt like crying. "Yes, I see them."

"I've never seen men like them… they're magnificent," she answered, and I could hear Drogus snort.

"Easy be magnificent if you have coin for it," he grumbled.

There was no procession of servants after the riders as I thought there would be. It was just the three of them and they were quick to come into the town and approach the church. The details developed as the distance closed between us. For the middle rider, I noted the refined structuring of bones, demonic but undeniably handsome with sharp pointed eyebrows and bowed lips. I watched those eyes move over the crowd in front of him, intelligent and assessing, as if it were not people he was looking at, at all. More like things… instruments.

Sure enough, the townsmen looked like nothing around the men, soft, balding and diminutive, as greetings were exchanged and proceedings towards the church doors began.

"What do you think they want?" Tifa murmured after they'd all gone inside. I moved back to look at the others from behind the chimney. The sun was almost gone and it was growing colder, their faces had turned red around the nose and cheeks as I’m sure mine had. In the background I could see all the small windows of the houses lighting up, little yellow squares dotting the patchwork landscape. In the corner of my vision, my hair had turned deep amber but I knew the moonlight would bleach it white soon.

I looked over to the church again.

"We'll have to wait and see."

And oh, would I see. I'd see what the heavens see, what the angels witness. I'd see hell the way only one that falls from grace ever could.

* * *

Tifa and I helped my aunt put the children down to bed, which always involved a lot of wrangling and repetitive story-telling and throwing little bodies around the mattresses, and then waited up with her for Ned to return.

The hour grew late as we waited, and the last log we'd put in the fire was an ash replica of itself by the time we heard the front door to the shop open below. We'd been sitting around, me on the windowsill looking out at the river and Tifa and aunt Ena on the settee reading. We all listened together to my uncle’s footsteps on the stairs and then to the noises of him taking off his shoes outside the door.

He came in with his face flushed as it was when he had drink taken, and the expression in his slightly dazed eyes wasn't what we were expecting at all.

"You are all still awake at this hour," he said first, closing the door behind him and walking over to the fire.

"Of course we are," my aunt tutted, getting up from her seat, "are you hungry love? I'll get some bread and tea. Tifa–"

"Can we not hear the news first, Mother?" The girl said quickly, closing her book and setting it by her side. She was still in her day dress, though she'd taken off the apron, and it tightened around her legs as she leaned forward with her elbows between her knees.

Her mother scowled at her but Ned cut in, surprising us all when he issued out a gruff, almost high-pitched laugh. "News?" He uttered, shaking his head and turning around to face us, "such news! News I can hardly account for..."

"What, love?" My aunt looked away from her daughter to watch him, "you've supped whiskey," she decided, looking at him in minor dismay.

"Yes, a celebration glass," he agreed while waving a hand in the air dismissively.

"Celebration?" This again surprised us. I pressed my shoulder into the glass of the window and watched him move his strangely wide eyes over each of us before going on.

"They want to put money into the town," he said. His tone and expression was almost as incredulous as ours, "they want to become part-owners of our establishments and help bring new business out to us."

"Owners?" My aunt repeated slowly, "they want to buy out our shop?"

"Only a small percent of it, as they would with all other businesses here. They'd be investors but wouldn't have much involvement in the daily running."

"Surely that can't be true." My aunt’s tone was almost dreadful, as if she feared hope penetrating one ounce of her soul only to be ripped away seconds later. I felt similarly wary, watching my uncle for signs that he was jesting with us, or that bad news had possibly turned him mad. He looked mad enough, his eyes wide and not focusing on anything for long, his cheeks red and swollen.

But he wasn't mad. He was… happy. A weight that had been years gaining burden had suddenly lifted in the space of an evening, and he hardly knew what to do with the relief.

I felt cold looking at it, afraid for him as I listened to his words.

"This is the way forward for the upper classes now. The old wealth is dying out and more and more their fortune will rely on investment and infrastructure. Founders of cities hold the power in this century and these foreign lords know that," he was going on, perched against the fireplace.

"This will never be a city," Tifa admonished, giving him a tiresome look.

"You don't know that, my girl," he said back to her, "why not here more than anywhere else? We're not in a bad location and the river gives us a niche advantage. At the very least we could be a proper market town. If anyone could make it so, it would be those men. I've never met their kind in my life."

"What are they like, Father? Where do they come from?" Tifa questioned eagerly, pulling her feet up on the settee as if settling in for a story.

"The owner is a lord from the Northern continent. Sephiroth Jenova. A decorated war General. The others also held high positions in his army."

An awed silence fell over the room. "Soldiers," Tifa repeated, astonished. But I thought it sounded right; I could picture Sephiroth Jenova riding into war like a serpentine of death, clashing against men as the surge of a tide.

"What brings men such as that here?" My aunt asked him.

"Investment, as I said," he repeated, shrugging, "our land is as of yet untapped after all. They want to claim it first. And they are young men really, in their prime, but very intelligent, I will tell you. It was his dark-haired companion that did most of the talking. Lord Angeal Hewley was his name, a better speaker than any politician or council man I've heard. He and the third man, Genesis Rhapsodos, are from the Mideel continent, both own colonies over there.”

He stopped there and stretched his back. “You will see more of them in the coming weeks as they inspect the town, no doubt. I have a feeling these lords will take a hands-on approach to bringing about the change they’ve promised.”

* * *

My uncle was not wrong.

Over the next few weeks, the lords made several trips to the town. Mostly it was Lord Angeal Hewley who came. He seemed to be the business-minded one of the three and, according to my uncle, he was a down-to-earth, practical man with few airs and graces. Angeal attended the town meetings and dealt with the local men on walkthroughs of their businesses. After a while he became, for lack of better word, a common enough sight to us.

Sometimes Lord Rhapsodos accompanied him. Of the three lords, he was the one who showed his “class” the most. It’s not that he quite sniffed the air in disdain, but some people reckoned he wanted to. He never made any real effort to talk with the local people outside of business matters, and while attending gatherings he would be seen to sit in the corner reading a book instead of listening to what was being discussed.

Despite this, Genesis was still a source of great fascination and admiration when he showed up, especially among the women of the town. He was a strikingly attractive man. I hadn’t noticed it so much on that first occasion because I was distracted by… other things, but when I saw him again, I was better able to take in his features. They were fine and sharp – very much those of a pampered high-born. His eyes especially were incredibly bright and had a sort of keenness behind them that it took me years to understand. Rhapsodos took pride in his appearance to an almost performance-like level. His auburn hair was always perfectly styled and he wore clothes that flattered his colouring; maroons, reds or dark oranges. He preferred overcoats that were thigh-length and full around the hips and arms, with high-collared shirts decorated with ruffles or other trimmings. He usually had several items of jewellery; an earring in his right ear always, and large, fine rings on his fingers.

As I said, the girls of the town were especially in a flurry whenever he came. In their opinion, he was the epitome of a prince from their popular romance novels and some even started to fantasise that they’d be the one to bag him and become the mistress of his estate. The prettier girls took to wearing their finest dresses on his visits, and the merchants that came at that time found their rouges and other cosmetics selling fast from their stock. I might have laughed along with Tifa at the sight of them flocking out to the streets with their red lips and cheeks pink like dolls’, only it was clear to me just what this effort would appear like in Rhapsodos’ haughty eyes. 

I’m sure that Sephiroth Jenova would have been a recipient of this sort of attention, maybe moreso, only that the third lord didn’t return to the town for over two months after that first visit. We’d started to assume that as the greater lord, he was leaving all business to his companions.

In the end, he took me by surprise. It was late one afternoon. I was on my way back from delivering an order to a family that lived on the other side of town, when I spotted a gathering of people on the pier up ahead. At first, I thought it was just a large queue for one of the fish stalls, but I quickly realised that the officials of the town were there – the mayor and the local head of trade.

Then I saw him.

Like a time-lapse of a withering flower, the pier seemed to shrink in on itself. Everything grew small around him as he stood among the other men. Sephiroth Jenova. He was dressed again in dark clothes, another exceptionally long overcoat with a black shirt underneath. His only adornments were the silver buckles that ran along the sides of the coat, matching those on his black riding boots. His skin and hair were as shockingly pale as I remember, but it was those green eyes that pierced through like blades, the waning afternoon light having no effect in warming them.

I paused where I was, though I can’t remember what made me do it. A fog settled over my mind again. It was nothing as intense as it had been that first night, but enough to make me numb to my own thoughts as I stood watching him. He looked like something from a painting; the centrepiece of a work treated in vivid contrast to the dulled figures surrounding him. He kept his eyes lowered and his expression remained calm and considering as he nodded and infrequently responded to what the others were saying to him.

I remember thinking that I didn’t want to go over there; to be part of the rabble. So, I turned and went back the way I’d come.

I don’t know how long I walked. I went far past where the last of the trade boats were docked and continued until I reached the very end of the built walkway. There were no houses down that far, just fields leading up into the mountains. The boards of the pier were less maintained down on that part and they rocked uneasily under my feet as I walked over to sit on the edge. I crossed my legs and braced my arms against them as I clutched my head in my hands. It had been throbbing all day, but by then it was practically blinding.

I hissed and pressed my eyes closed, then started to take some deep breaths as I’d taught myself to do when the pain got overwhelming. My skin was hot and wet under my clothes from the walk down there, but as I sat there it cooled and started to make me shiver.

I felt wretchedly ill. It had been getting worse with every passing day and I didn’t know how much longer I would be able to pretend otherwise. I’d come to think that perhaps I had my mother’s bad blood after all, perhaps this was how she felt in the weeks leading up to her passing. Like parts of herself were being taken from her. Her dreams, her waking hours, her happiness. All becoming haunted and out of her control, as if her mind was a toy in a child's hands. A puppet.

I opened my eyes to look down into the river. I expected to see the flowing, muddy brown surface of the water, but instead there was something red.

Red and pink. Lips and cheeks like a doll’s.

I let out a shout and stood up, staring in horror at the body of a woman… just a girl, bobbing there in the water right under the pier. I remember her dress. It was long and white, with pink flowers sewn on the front. The skin underneath white enough to match it. Her eyes were wide open and staring unseeing at the sky, and her throat was… her throat was…

“Oh Gaia…” I took a step backwards, almost tripping over my feet. “Gaia…gaia.” I wasn’t able to pull my eyes off of the sight of her, of her awful wound, but at the same time my body wanted to be as far away as possible…

And in my shocked state I didn’t notice the shadow rising from the water behind me. It was only when it crawled up on the boards from the other side and let out a loud screech that I turned and looked upon it standing there. It was a water monster known as a Geosgaeno. They were huge things over seven foot tall when upright. I jumped back and lifted my hands to defend myself, but it was too late. The creature had reared back on its haunches and jumped towards me, teeth bared and ready to tear open my flesh.

But it never happened.

I heard the sound of something cutting through the air and then a sickening slicing sound, like when the monger’s knives severed the heads of the fish on the stalls. I lowered my hands and stared in utter shock as the creature halted mid-air right in front of me. The expression in its eyes seemed similarly surprised. Seconds later, it let out a choked, agonised squeal. Bringing my hands up to cover my ears, I lowered my gaze and saw the end of the blade jutting out through its mid-section. It remained for only a moment longer before it was being pulled back out, leaving the creature to fall forward and gasp out its last few breaths on the boards at my feet.

I stared down at it for a moment before looking over to my saviour. I felt the bones of my neck freeze in place when my eyes met green. Sephiroth.

He stared back at me, as calm and put together as he’d been on the pier. The only difference was that he now had a sword held in one hand. Its blade was thin and extraordinarily long, reaching almost all the way over to me.

I didn’t know what to say, so I remained silent. It was the lord who eventually broke the moment. He lowered the sword to drag over the ground and inclined his head.

“You shouldn’t be down this far on your own,” he said, motioning to the now dead creature, “monsters in these rivers are aggressive. They are drawn in by the smells from the stalls.” Smooth words. Not any particular accent, I noticed; his voice was without inflection.

I blinked and then cleared my throat to finally speak.

“There’s… there’s a girl.” My words were little more than a jumbled mess so I lifted my finger to point at the water. I flushed a bit as he arched a brow, but he did turn to look at what I was referring to.

As he moved over to peer into the water, I glanced to the right and saw his great black chocobo waiting patiently in the grass a few feet away. It was fully tacked, and I could see the scabbard for the sword tied to one side. I understood then that Sephiroth must have been on his way out of the town when he spotted me and the monster.

Even though I was grateful for his help, I felt humiliated at needing it.

"I see.” I looked back over as the man straightened up after taking in the sight of the body in the water. He looked back at me. “Someone not as fortunate as you.”

Feeling put on the spot, my throat was tight as I answered, "she’s… from the town. I-I know her.” He nodded in understanding.

“You should go back and let the others know, then. I’m sure her family would want the body retrieved before further damage is done.”

I nodded quickly and took a few steps forward. I was about to turn when a sudden heat spread across my right shoulder. It was like when one presses a healing potion to their skin, the warmth penetrating the flesh and making it break out in goose bumps. I turned sharply to find Sephiroth now standing right beside me, one gloved hand on my shoulder.

"Remember what I said about being careful.” His voice was low and his expression odd. I remember standing there and not being able to move or say anything back to him. It felt suddenly like everything went quiet. The daylight seemed to dim around us, until all I could see was the vivid layers of green in his eyes, a thousand shades swirling around each other with the temperament of storm clouds. They were not like other eyes, even then I sensed that.

Sephiroth lips parted in a soft smile as I stared up at him.

"Go, now.”

Whatever spell came over me was released and I did as he asked.

* * *

The girl in the water was the dressmaker’s oldest daughter. I remember the cries from her mother echoing through the town as they pulled her body from the water that same evening. She’d been a fair girl, one of the prettiest in town, so it was all the more tragic to see her cut down so young.

The funeral was held the next day and all of our family attended. Afterwards things returned to business as normal, albeit with the grim atmosphere that always follows after the loss of a young life in a locality. The mayor had ordered new wards to be placed along the waterway against creatures coming in, and they’d also sent men down to build up that end of the pier. It wouldn’t help really, but it provided some psychological comfort to the other parents of the town.

Time moved on after that. A month… two. The death eventually faded to join the other cautionary tales of loss in the area’s history. My sickness, though, had not faded and continued to be a torment to me each day. It never reached the point where I was bedridden, but at the same time I did feel that it was worsening. The migraines became more frequent, and I could feel my body growing weaker and weaker. It was getting to the point where I did not know how much longer I could stand this stalemate between existence and not.

But then, one day, something arrived that would finally break it.

“It’s an invitation,” Tifa said, holding the piece of fine parchment in her hand. It had just arrived from a messenger to the shop door. “For all young people of the village to attend a ball in the Nebelheim Mansion in two nights’ time.”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this first chapter of my new story. Please leave a review below if you want to see more.


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